Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles was on WSSP in Milwaukee today, talking about a number of topics. When talking about the importance of playoff experience at the end of the interview, Skiles takes issue with people who say that a lottery pick can be more valuable than an early playoff exit. He goes on to say just how valuable playoff experience can be for a young team:

“We want to talk to Brandon Jennings, Andrew Bogut, Luc Mbah a Moute and Ersan Ilyasova about hey this is what it’s gonna take to get in the playoffs and this is what you’re gonna have to do in the summer to get better if you wanna be a high level team, that’s great and they’re good guys and they’ll listen, but until they go through it, realize the way that the level of play raises up, there’s nothing like that. Then once they go through it, it’s amazing what happens to guys like that in the summer. They really get after the development of their game and they start making strides as a player.”

Plenty of people talk about how important it is to accumulate young talent. What’s rarely discussed is how important it is to properly nurture young talent, and Skiles contends that playoff experience is a crucial part of that puzzle.